The field of the present disclosure relates generally to mobile communication devices and, more specifically, to a mobile communication device that enables trusted operation of one or more isolated, virtualized operating systems running thereon.
Mobile communication devices, such as smartphones, cellular phones, and personal digital assistants (PDAs) have grown in use and popularity among a variety of different types of users. At least some known devices include a central processing unit (CPU) that may be virtualized to simultaneously execute multiple operating systems (OSs) on one device. For example, a software program known as a hypervisor may be used to separate the different OSs by managing input/output (I/O) access operations transmitted between the OSs and hardware devices included in the computer system. More specifically, the hypervisor facilitates separating underlying hardware, such as the CPU and associated peripherals (e.g., display devices, touchscreens, and communications interfaces), from the OSs that run on the hardware.
While device virtualization may facilitate separating one set of software from another set of software on known computing devices, the underlying platform may be susceptible to a variety of security vulnerabilities. Because of this, it has become increasingly important to those in the computer industry to increase the security of known computing devices. As such, it may be desirable to incorporate enhanced security into a device virtualization architecture.